I’m amused, and mildly irritated, by all the credit Google gets for the advent of driverless cars, as if autonomous driving were an invention that America’s hapless automakers could never have envisioned.

In fact, the auto industry has been developing self-driving vehicles for decades, long before Google even existed, when Sergey Brin and Larry Page were just babies.

But there’s a growing consensus, mostly emanating from the left coast, that Google has somehow cracked the code to the future of mobility and will soon render traditional carmakers like General Motors, Ford Motor and Toyota Motor as nothing more than purveyors of ordinary appliances.

Baloney, I say. Self-driving cars are coming, but they won't have a Google badge glued to the hood.

And while it's exciting to think about all the possibilities of a futuristic world full of robotic cars providing safe, clean mobility for all, don't count on that Jetsons vision in your lifetime. There are still too many regulatory, technological and practical obstacles in the way.

Instead, look for the technology to roll out gradually, building on systems that are already available, like adaptive cruise control, active braking, lane-keeping systems and parking assist.

The 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-Class, due out in September, will be the first car on the market fully capable of driving itself (under certain circumstances; see video below). Its new steering assist feature will keep you in your lane up to 124 miles per hour, but you have to make turns manually. In stop-and-go traffic, the array of sensors and cameras keeps an eye on cars around you, knowing when to accelerate and when to brake. But you still have to remain alert, and you must keep your hands on the wheel at all times, or the system will shut off.

He's right about the potential fallout. If cars are smart enough to drive themselves, and avoid crashes, everything from the steel industry to hospitals would be affected. But I agree with Forbes contributor Haydn Shaughnessy that a $2 trillion market in the U.S. seems overblown. And I think Mui is perhaps getting swept up in the what-ifs of driverless cars. (He's an innovation consultant, after all.) Still, I commend him for diving into a sexy topic with thoughtful analysis.

An auto writer I respect a lot, Wards.com columnist Drew Winter, argues in a recent blog post that Google poses a serious threat to the auto industry. He says the tech giant and automakers are beginning to wage "an epic battle for the soul of the auto industry." I don't think so.

Instead of Google vs. Detroit, I see a new era of collaboration. Carmakers will necessarily team up with digital partners like Google, Microsoft, Intel (maybe even Apple) to produce talking vehicles that don't crash and get you to work on time. Companies like Ford and Microsoft already collaborate on technology that lets you bring your music and social media apps into your vehicle. Now these non-traditional partners will be working together to solve the difficult challenges of urban mobility on an overcrowded planet.

GM's Chief Technology Officer Jon Lauckner is already plotting a new approach to innovation that includes collaboration on autonomous driving. Many of the best ideas for cars of the future, he told me in a recent interview, won’t come from car companies at all, but rather from non-traditional auto suppliers, like Microsoft or Google, and from innovative start-ups. “We no longer rely solely on our in-house expertise, which is a big change from where we’ve been in the past,” he said.

But like GM, Google doesn't have all the answers either. It isn't capable of producing self-driving cars on its own. It will need the auto industry's expertise to turn its vision into reality.

One thing the tech and auto industries can agree on is that self-driving cars are doable. "This is not Star Wars technology," says Renault-Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn. With enough sensors, processors and cameras on board, any car can drive itself. But at what cost? The radar system mounted to the top of Google's self-driving Toyota Prius costs an estimated $70,000. Like Google, many carmakers already have prototypes on the road. The debatable question is when they'll get to market, and under what circumstances.

In August, the U.S. Department of Transportation launched the first real-world test of connected vehicle technology -- critical for self-driving cars to operate safely -- in and around Ann Arbor, Mich. One goal of the year-long project, involving 3,000 vehicles, is to come up with a realistic time frame for the technology.

Honda Motor Co. President Takanobu Ito agrees. "We have the hardware to make self-driving cars. But we feel the driver has to be ultimately responsible. We want technology that assists the driver, like when he is fatigued."